


Black Wolf

by CommonEvilMastermind



Series: Witcher Crossover [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Companion Piece, Dragon Age:Inquisition x The Witcher: Wild Hunt, F/M, POV Solas, now it's done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6722077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonEvilMastermind/pseuds/CommonEvilMastermind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Kill a Wolf from Solas' POV!  For rpglvr, who made my made my entire week for asking for the story from this POV.</p><p>unbeta'd and not particularly edited, please feel free to call me on typos or mistakes. Thank you for reading!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rpglvr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=rpglvr).



> Will make less sense if you haven't read To Kill A Wolf, the first work in this series.

To Kill a Wolf - [Link](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5927482)

Fenedhis, he could _smell_ them.

It was obvious, even without the nose of his wolf. A sweet, putrid smell that clung in the air, drifting as heavily as the fog. The others spoke of marsh gas and rotting vegetation, but he _knew._ They were old, now, old as the hills, but so was he. And they were creatures not easily forgotten.

His own pride did him in. Again. It was said that with age, so came wisdom, but it seemed he would prove that epithet wrong over and over through the millennia. No one’s fault but his own – he had been lying in his bedroll, watching her as she slept. Her back was a wall in the nighttime darkness, tight with tension. Her breath was shallow, she rested uneasily. Her footsteps fell more heavily, now, and her smile flickered as a candle in a gale.

That, also, was a burden to be laid at his feet.

So when the wind shifted from the west and he smelled _them,_ so close, he nearly gagged in fury and disgust. That they would dare, _dare_ , to come so near -! He snatched up his staff and stalked into the fog. His anger, ever pointing inwards, turned like a compass-needle. She could not be his, could never be his, but he would slaughter all who dared her harm.

Arrogant. Foolish. Over confident, full-of-pride. They caught him before he was ready, binding him in ropes of wolfsbane, nightshade, and yew. He snapped and snarled, screaming in impotent rage as they cackled and whooped.

They bound him to the tree. A twisted thing, as full of malice and hate as the women it served, it tore into his skin, sapping him dry as the Crones laughed and danced. And when it was done, when he hung broken and empty, the Ladies of the Wood cast one final spell.

He could not stop the change.

There was no light, under the tree. Here then, is where he would die, twisted and tortured and feral. Alone, without touch of moon or sun. There was nothing left but to lie, waiting, remembering. Her smile, wide and wild as she claimed a demon’s head. The sharp fire of her anger, the merriness of her laugh-

He could not remember her laugh. Just that he knew he loved it, that he always had to hide his smile when she threw back her head, whole body shaking with mirth. On the battlefield, she blazed with deadly grace, a burning golden fire. When she laughed, it was as if the spring had come after a thousand years of winter. And when she cried-

He had left her in Crestwood, and she cried, breath catching as she gaped in disbelief. He had fought many wars in his life – he knew the sound a person made when a knife stabs them through the chest. She had made that sound as he walked away from her. And now she would never –

He would never –

He howled his grief and his rage into the darkness. The more he struggled, the deeper the thorns bit, until the air was acrid with his own blood. And still, he screamed.

Then he heard a noise.

A clank, metal-on-metal. And a smell, stronger than the decay, of copper and sunshine and his own ozone magic. It cut through his panic in a dark instant. He froze, paralyzed.

_No_

_Please_

He heard her voice, a curse on a soft exhale. And he knew, then, how he would die. The scene played bright before him in the darkness – her shock, her rage, the flash of a golden blade. The Lady Inquisitor, come back with the head of her people’s greatest enemy.

But what head? His thoughts were wild now, as she made her way ever closer. When his blood poured out in this rotting place, would it be wolf-black or the red of a man? He did not know, could not know, would his fur fall away with the light from his eyes? His body, broken at her feet. She would know, she would know, and she would leave him here in her rage and hate, to rot away in the filth and the dark.

She was close now, he could taste her in the air.

At least it would be quick. At least he would see her, one last time.

He blinked his eyes open for a second, a half a second, piercing easily though the black. But she jumped back with a muffled _shit,_ and he closed his eyes again. His six eyes, blood red, that glowed faintly in the dark.

He had forgotten.

She scrambled for a light, a little fire-rune and he watched her, watching him. Saw the emotions play across her face – her high cheeks, her stubborn chin. He had never taken the moment, never allowed himself the moment, to touch those cheeks, to kiss that chin. He –

“Fenedhis,” she breathed. “You’re not just a wolf. You’re The Wolf.” Her eyes were round and wide, fear warring with disbelief. His name fell from her lips, the wrong name. “Fen’Harel.”

He let out a breath. Her hand was on her sword.

“Kill the wolf, they said,” she muttered bitterly to herself. “No mention that the wolf is Fen fucking Harel, King of Tricksters, God of Lies. Fenedhis. Can I even kill you?”

He did not want to hear this. Wanted it to be over. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. Finish it, vhenan. Let me go.

“Fenedhis,” she said again, and sank onto the muck of the ground. He heard her breath, rough and rasping. But the sword stroke did not fall.

Once, he had been proud of his patience. He would wait for decades, eons, for a flower to bloom, a spirit to speak, a plan to come to fruition. Now, here in the dark at the ending of the world, each second stretched so far that he broke.

“Why do you wait?” he said, voice twisted and rough.

“Fuck!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “You can talk!” She stared at him, and he watched her mind turn. “Of course you can talk, you’re fucking Fen’Harel, that’s – what are you _doing_ here?”

A question, of course, she always asked her questions, needling and nudging, leaving nothing unturned. The Inquisitor in truth. “I was taken by surprise,” he snarled. “Caught by the witches, tricked and trapped. And now, here, to be slain by _you-“_

“You know of me?” she asked.

He looked at her. I know you, he did not say. I know the creases of your eyes when you laugh and the way your hair looks when you roll out of a tent on a cold winter morning. I know you, you drink too much tea and you shout when you’re angry. I know how your lips felt, chapped by the wind, when I kissed you on your balcony in Skyhold, how your fire rose to meet me when you kissed me in a dream. We have fallen through the Fade, we have battled gods and demons and searched in a forest for a widow’s lost ring. I know you, ma vhenan. You are my heart.

Instead he said, “I know of you,” and had to look away. His end could not come soon enough. But the knowledge he would take with him when he died – “You carry a piece of my orb in your palm,” he admitted.

“Your orb!” she said, shocked. “How did Corypheus-“

“A mistake,” he snarled, tired of the dance, the waiting. “Now end me, if you have come to do so. I had heard you merciful.”

She looked distraught. “I do not want to kill you,” she said softly.

He laughed to hide his dread. “I know what the Dalish say of me, da’len.” He sneered the diminutive, knowing how she hated it. “Do not lie. Kill me and they will sing of you for generations – with or without Mythal’s brand on your skin.” It was an attack of his own, calculated to bite as deeply as any sword. He watched it strike, and a small voice in the back of his heart shouted in rage.

But- “I don’t want to kill you,” she said again. “You are the only god we have left.”

He would have reared, the thorns biting deep into his skin. Black blood seared on the air. “You need no god,” he growled. “Least of all me.”

She rubbed her eyes with the harsh leather of her glove. “I was supposed to bring back your head,” she said, sounding just as lost as she had that night, when he left her in the glade. “So the Ladies would tell me where Solas went.”

What a trap the witches set. He growled at the thought of their rotting hands on her skin. “You should not have dealt with them,” he said. “They are dark and twisted things, utterly evil.”

“They can’t be that bad,” she said. He forgot, sometimes, how young she truly was. “They take care of all those children.

He smiled, and she flinched. “And for what?” he said. “Think. Even the Dalish tell tales of the Ladies of the Wood. Stories of witches and children and sweets.” It was a gamble – he knew far less of Dalish tales then he claimed, but reason said that these three would not have faded too far from memory.

His risk paid off as she paled. “No.”

“They are dark and twisted things,” he said softly.

“You have to help me.” She snapped awake, wide awake, and her being filled every nook and corner of her skin. “I’ll free you. We’ll get the children out, get them away, take them – take them to the Inquisition. And Solas, we need to make sure Solas is safe, get him out of the bog –“

He watched her pace, still. Remembering the way she had shouted, when he left her. Remember the way she had cried. “Free me, and I will save the children,” he said. Then, carefully, “Are you sure you wish the mage?”

“Of course!” she snapped, whirled. “It’s – he’s –“

“He is a fool,” he said, teeth bared.

“Shut up,” she spat, bitter and dark as a knife. “Will you help me or not? Solas and the children for your freedom.”

It chilled him, this mercy, this bargain. He read the worlds inside the lines – I would fight the greatest evil that my people have ever known, if only he were by my side. Even if he will not love me. I would have him safe.

Somewhere deep under the black-fire fur, a small voice breathed into a shaky silence. He had chosen – his duty over his love. Now she had chosen too. And he found, as much as he wanted to, he could not deny her.

“I accept,” he said slowly, plans flashing through his mind. “But you must not come with me.” You must never go anywhere near the Ladies again. “I will ride the wind, take the children to safety – you are too slow. The Ladies will be angry. Stay here, and I will come back for you.”

She got the stubborn set to her jaw that he loved and hated so well. “I want to-“

“Stay. Here.” He bellowed with all the remembered strength in his form. She stilled.

“I will stay,” she said. He hope she did not lie.

“Then I must go quickly,” he said.

She finally lifted her sword, hacking away at his bonds. The thorns fought, biting deeper into his skin, but at last he stood free of them. Her armor shone in the red light of the fire rune, in the mirror of her eyes. “Stay,” he whispered, not begging. Not quite.

“Go,” she snapped, and he left her there in the rot and the dark.

~*~

He had missed running the wind.

Most of it was a tool for a job long done – the glistening fangs, the fur of dark fire, the six crimson eyes burning through the night. This form - half spirit, half power – he had woven into his soul long ago, when even the mountains were young. Released from the limits of physical flesh, he could push himself as far as his will would carry him.

He did not miss making children scream and cry, like the little ones did as he wrapped them gently in his pelt. He did not miss the way he drew dark things to him, like a loadstone to creatures of pain and fear.

But he had missed running on the wind. He bared his teeth and howled to the sliver of the moon in victory, in freedom. This, then, was power – to run, fast and fierce, to save the ones you loved.

This, then, was freedom – to have someone to save, someone to love.

He arrived at the Inquisition camp before he was ready, children tumbling like crying puppies from his back. Bull shouted, Sera sent an arrow flying, narrowly missing one of this passengers, he opened his mouth, but that showed his teeth, Cassandra drew her sword –

“Stop, stop, it’s him!” Cole shouted, jumping up and down in front of him like a fool. “Stop, stop, don’t shoot, it’s Solas!”

Cassandra checked her swing, nicking Cole’s hat. “Cole-!”

“It is merely an illusion,” he said, trying to speak as quietly and levelly as he could, still short for breath. “I am Solas – keep the children safe, I must –“

Then they heard her scream.

He had lived long enough to see terrible things. He had walked on fields where thousands had lay dying by his own hand. He had torn down the sky and built it anew, he had destroyed his entire world. There were memories that still woke within him, and he would not sleep for days after. He had seen, and heard, some terrible things.

But her scream, tearing through the mists, was the very worst of them all.

Cassandra went pale. Cullen, running up, stumbled and almost fell. Cole said, “oh,” very softly, and closed his eyes. Bull’s face went hard as stone. “Boss.”

“No,” he breathed.

“What is it?” Dorian said, staring at the trees in the pre-dawn light. “Where is she?”

“They have her,” he said, and he could not recognize his own voice.

“Chuckles?” Varric asked.

He huffed a breath, absent in agreement.

“Chuckles,” Varric said again. “How are we going to get her back?” He blinked, all six eyes, stared down at the dwarf. “We’re going to get her back,” Varric said.

“Yes.” His mind lurched, tripping over itself. “This is what we will do.”

~*~

The battle was madness, chaos from every direction. Exhaustion dragged at his bones, a dark ocean current that threatened to carry him away in the undertow. But she, she was clear, she was safe, riding out of the bog on her sure-foot hart. Staffless, his fury red and rising, he turned on the witches and, at long last, let everything go. Grief and rage, dread and despair boiled out from his fingertips, acrid poison. And then Bull swung his axe at a maggoty head and there were two Ladies of the Wood, not three.

Dorian conjured sheets of fire against the writhing ground. Blackwall felled the twisted branches, dodged their piercing thorns. Varric and Vivienne pinned the witches’ pet with arrows of ice and cold steel, Sera was cackling with jars of bees, Cassandra was shouting something, something important, something that completely did not matter because a witch is standing there, looming, leering, laughing. Her skin is cracked leather, split and bleeding, something too-long dead. Her mouth is slick with red, and her lips open wide.

He does not give the witch a chance to spit more bile. He shouts, pushes his rage through the air. It cracks, blue-white lightning and the old monster falls. Just a pile of cooked meat.

There is one Lady of the Wood, the old Weavess, with her necklace of ears lying on her desiccated breast. She shrieks, piercing fear and rage, and calls the fog around her. He snarls, lunges after her like the wolf - but something knocks him down.

“STOP!” shouts Cole, looming lankily, hat eclipsing the rising of sun. The old thing slips away into the bog, cackling. He looks up at Cole with a furious, terrible grin-

“She needs you,” Cole said, and the breath fell out of his lungs.

“Is she hurt?” His mind reoriented, spine straightening. “Is she safe, she got away – Cole, the Inquisitor-?”

Cole shook his head. “She’s safe, in the tent, they want her to sleep, she won’t she fights. Struggling, snapping – must get free! Must save them! Blackwall, Bull, Dorian, Viv, Varric, Cass, Sera, Solas! Solas, Solas, Solas, a name, a chant, a wish, a spell, she is stuck in the panic, in the pattern-“

“Is she all right?” he interrupted Cole, blood still boiling. The fog is thinning, but the last witch still lives.

“I don’t know!” Cole wailed, “She needs your help!”

He drew in a breath on the edge of a knife. The hunt called to him, every fiber of his bruised and broken skin. He would tear the witch apart with these soft hands, these dull teeth, scatter its ashes with salt and silver or die at last at the old hag’s hands. One last hunt-

“No,” Cole said. “ _A vhena’ra n’vhenama.”_ Where your heart is, there is your home. An old string of words, worn down by the flow of time. So out of place, here, as he stared into the woods bruised, bare, broken. It shocked him, a rush of heat into his lungs.

“ _Vhena’ra,”_ he murmured, the word precious on his lips. Heart. Home. He turned away from the mists, turned to the others. He expected questions, accusations, fear. Cassandra threw her cape around his shoulders. Varric clapped him on the back. Bull, covered in grayish-green blood, gave him a toothy smile. Heart. Home.

When he reached the camp, she was still fighting – Cullen, Harding, the sleeping potion, the healers. She kept cursing, scratching, calling his name over and over, so desperate he was sick with it. “Enough,” he said, and it came out harsh with his fear. Then, more gently. “Vhenan, sleep.” Her eyes fought to open – he soothed them, brushed back her hair, lay his hand against the tracks that marked her cheek. “Sleep,” he said softly.

She reached up, took his hand. Her lips, brushing his bloodied knuckles, curved into a faint smile.

~*~

He would not let go of her hand.

It was utterly impractical. The simple matters of eating and drinking and dressing one’s wounds became increasingly frustrating with only one hand. He could have pulled himself free – might have, had her grip ever lessened. But she held on to him, never faltered, even as she slept. And he simply and quietly refused to let go.

It was a deep sleep, a healing sleep, beyond even the reach of dreams. Her face was calm and still, the fire in her eyes banked by exhaustion. How strange. How wondrous. He meant to sleep, had said he would sleep, but there was too much to see, to think about. The way the shadows fell across her face, across the arch of her cheekbones, the set of her chin. Her brow, unmarred by concern. Without the grace of her laughter.

Around them, the camp settled into an early, exhausted slumber. Patrols were set, watches were made, and the thousand daily things that must be done were finished. The children, loud and full of life, were convinced to let the Lady Inquisitor sleep. One, the youngest girl, was heard to say plaintively, “But when is the _wolf_ coming back? I want to ride the wolf again!”

Not missing a beat, Varric said, “I’m sure he’ll be along in a day or two, short-pants. He’s doing… wolf stuff. Now, come sit by the fire, and we can tell each other stories.”

“Wolf story, wolf story!” the straw-haired elfling said excitedly. “Wolf story, wolf story!”

The Dread Wolf looked up at the ceiling of his tent and wondered for a long, exhausted moment, what the world had come to.

Night had fallen, and the stars rose high before she stirred. He lay beside her, holding her hand, and his fears flooded him in a rush of adrenaline. She – would she remember? Would she ask? Perhaps this, this was their final moment. She would wake and remember and turn from him, in anger and hate, his heart, his home –

“You’re here,” she said, surprised, voice heavy with sleep.

He masked his fear in dry wit. “I had little choice,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

She peered over her cocoon of blankets, realized that she still held his hand. “Sorry,” she said, but she did not let go.

He let out a breath, his mouth gone dry. “I expect you have questions,” he said.

“Yes.” She blinked, tensed. “Where are the children?”

He snorted, amused that her latest group of lost souls were the first thing on her mind. Amused, not surprised. “Safe, in the camp. Upset. Wild to see you. The red-haired one broke in here twice. The smallest boy wonders when you will come to play.”

“Safe?” she asked.

“They’re safe,” he assured her. She settled back, tension leaving her bones. “What do you plan to do with them?”

“Um-“ She blinked again. He watched the succession of thoughts through her mind. “Bring them to Skyhold,” she said decisively. “Teach them magic?” This was less decisive.

“How will you accomplish this?” he asked, teasing wryly. “Are you now a mage yourself?”

She grinned at him brilliantly. “I’ll ask you very nicely to teach them magic.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Will you help?”

“Of course I will,” he said, offended that she thought he would deny her in this.

“Good,” she smiled.

He smiled too, but it was stretched, strained. That could not be all. “You still wish me to stay?” he said. It was no louder than a whisper – he was afraid of the answer.

She froze. Slowly, painfully, she rolled onto her side until they lay face-to-face. They were close, no more than two feet, but the distance stretched wide, gaping. Only their hands, still linked, lay between. A lifeline.

“Solas?” she said slowly.

“Yes?”

“Are you really the Dread Wolf?”

She knew. She remembered. She had put the pieces together, sketched out their shape – his bright lady and her quick eyes, her endless questions. He could lie. Say, as he had to the others, that it was only an illusion.

He was so tired of lying.

“Yes,” he told her, softly, broken.

“Oh.” She blinked. Bit her lip. “Solas?”

“Yes?” His voice caught in his throat.

“Did you love me?”

_Yes, yes, a hundred thousand times yes. I loved you, I love you, and when I left I shattered any heart that was ever mine to hold. But the pieces, they are yours, always – whatever broken things that I am, I have been and will forever be yours._

“ _Vin, ma vhenan_ ,” was all he could say. Yes, my heart.

“Oh.”

He drew in a ragged breath, prepared himself, waited for the anger, the betrayal, to rise in her skin. Her next words would be the ax that felled him, and he braced for their mortal blow.

“Solas?” she said.

“Yes?”

 _“Ara sa’lath. Vhen’an’ara, ara’esha.”_ His lungs locked, breath frozen in his chest. You are my one love. My heart’s home, my best and most precious beloved. The words pierced his chest, turned him to glass. She grinned wickedly and he thought he would shatter with that smile. “ _Ara’fen,”_ she said.

My wolf.

The moment stretched forever, frozen eternally in the starlight. Then He Who Hunts Alone, Lord of Tricksters, Roamer of the Beyond, Bringer of Nightmares, King of Lies, let out a breath that was half a sob and buried his face in her shoulder. The Lady Inquisitor laughed and kicked out of her layers of blankets until she could draw him in close, hold him so tightly that his ribs ached with the effort. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes-

“ _Ane’fen?”_ he asked wetly into her shoulder. Your wolf?

“ _Vin,”_ she said, determined. “ _Ara’fen.”_ Yes. My wolf. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And when they finally slept, he was smiling into her hair.


End file.
